Bystander Hit During A Police Shooting: Pretty Rare, Expert Says

Tuesday's Metro Police shooting was not just unusual in that it was the first fatal shooting in the agency's history, but in that a bystander was injured as well. While we wait for more details to emerge from HPD, which is leading the investigation, Hair Balls checked in with a criminology expert about the incidence of bystander shootings.

"It's just a rare phenomenon," says David Klinger, a professor of criminology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. "...Police officers are trained to take into consideration what we call their 'background' - what's behind what I'm shooting at. Oftentimes, police officers are able to...structure encounters so that their background is clear."

A former patrol officer in L.A. and Redmond, Washington, Klinger is the author of In the Kill Zone: A Cop's Eye View of Deadly Force. He was also a professor of sociology at the University of Houston.

Unfortunately, Klinger says, there are times when a clear background is just not possible, and an officer has to shoot.

"You can't have an absolute prohibition on that, because if you
did, that would give the bad guys a huge advantage," he tells Hair
Balls. "They would just make sure they stood in front of somebody as
they were trying to kill a police officer or someone else, and then the
officer couldn't shoot them."

The Metro Police Department is accredited by the Commission on
Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, says Metro Assistant Chief
of Police Tim Kelly. In order for an agency to be CALEA-accredited, it
must be in line with that body's 462 accreditation standards.

Kelly read us the standard on deadly force, which states that an
officer "may use deadly force only when the officer reasonably believes
the action is in defense of human life, including the officer's own
life, or in defense of any person in immediate danger of serious
physical injury."

We're hoping HPD will soon be able to fill us in on details such as
how far away the bystander was from the police and the knife-wielding
assailant. We'll be back with more.